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Safety lockdown

Questions abound in fatal D.C. car chase

Ohioans in Congress witness incident that caused lockdown

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoCHARLES DHARAPAK | ASSOCIATED PRESSA damaged police car blocks Constitution Avenue after a Connecticut woman drove into a White House barricade, led police on a chase and was killed. Her baby was in the car with her.

Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — Both of Ohio’s senators were uncomfortable eyewitnesses to chaos on Capitol Hill
yesterday as a woman crashed her car into a White House barricade and then lead police on a chase
before they fatally shot her.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman was outside the Capitol when a series of gunshots punctuated the
air. Police pushed him and Sen. Jon Hoeven, R-N.D., into a nearby guardhouse.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown initially assumed the police cars rushing by were a motorcade —
until the shots rang out and people around him jumped for cover.

The Capitol and its office buildings were locked down for about half an hour starting around
2:30 p.m.

Authorities identified the driver who was killed as Miriam Carey, 34, a dental hygienist from
Stamford, Conn. Old friends and family expressed surprise, saying she had no reason to be in
Washington and was not political.

Police were executing search warrants at her home last night.

Carey’s 1-year-old daughter was in the car with her but was not hurt.

A police officer and Secret Service member were injured, but both were in good condition last
night.

Carey, driving a black Infiniti, first “attempted to pass a barricade” near the White House,
said Kim Dine, the chief of the Capitol police. Despite attempts by Secret Service officers to pull
her over, she sped away and raced toward the Capitol, followed by officers in car and on foot,
officials said.

Dine said the woman crashed her car into a barricade outside the Hart Senate Office Building,
then was shot and taken to a hospital. She apparently was unarmed.

“We have no information that this is related to terrorism or is anything other than an isolated
incident,” Dine said.

Friends said they’d never known Carey to suffer from mental illness, and no information on her
motive was available last night.

On the House side of the Capitol, Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, was talking with reporters
when police suddenly shut the doors to the room.

“(The Capitol police) were pretty panicky,” he said. “You could see it in their eyes.”

Tiberi huddled with about a dozen other members of Congress just off the House floor until
authorities let them return to their offices in nearby buildings. He said police warned them not to
get close to the windows.

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington, had just walked into his office after greeting two
officials from Worly Plumbing Supply in Columbus, who had just left. Then the emergency warning — a
voice urging members and staff to “shelter in place” — blared over the sound system.

Stivers invited the two Worly representatives to come back in.

“I told them to text and call their families,” he said.

Gov. John Kasich was in Washington for the day for an American Crossroads panel discussion, but
he wasn’t in the area when the shooting occurred.

Dispatch Reporters Sophia Lindsey and Joe Vardon contributed to this story. Information from
the Associated Press, The Washington Post and The New York Times also was included.